Edgeio Goes Live

The value of RSS and tags got a lot clearer and more exciting with today's launch of TechCrunchs Michael Arrington has had in the works for some time, represents what could be a disruptive model for classified advertising. (Note: The Dave Winer is an Edgeio advisor). Second, they have to start tagging the content they want listed. The notion of tagging blog content is the obstacle most critics see to the idea of wrote about the Structured Blogging initiative back in December.) I'm not sure, though, that the behaviors won't change. After all, the most effective way to change behaviors is to provide significant reward. The benefits of using the Edgeio approach could be huge, given enough volume of users: No need to submit anything to a third party, no need to fill out complex forms, no need to pay to publicize the availability of whatever it is you're trying to sell. As Nik puts it in his review:

I subscribe to the theory that the publishing and control of content belongs to the user and that we are heading in that direction. There are a few reasons for this, the first and most important is that the user owns his or her data, even if it is something as simple as a classified listing, so the user should be able to have effective control over the environment where this data is contained. With centralized services such as eBay and Craigslist the buyer and seller are left to the mercy of the platform provider. Blogging has enabled users to create content and publish it on the web easily, so using that platform for listings is only one of a number of potential services that can be built on top of what we have today.